Immortal Hope by Claire Ashgrove
 (The Curse of the Templars #1) 
Tor Books (Jan 2012)
Ebook, 368 pages
Paranormal Romance

Anne Macpherson is a history professor trying to complete her thesis on the Knights of Templar. She is continuing in her late fathers footsteps researching the knights and trying to unearth the secrets surrounding their histories, and to fathom why there was the separation from the church. She spends some of her spare time giving tarot readings, and  she also has psychometric powers allowing her to get visions of the past and future when coming into contact with a person or item, which she also uses to guide people. She is happily going about her own business when this huge man strides into her house accusing her of being a demon! Instead of waiting for an explanation he hoists her over his shoulder and carts her off into the night, and into a whole new, or rather old, world.

Merrick is an honest to goodness Knight of Templar! After making a rather huge boo boo a few hundred years ago he and the other Knights are now condemned to fight the good fight for the remainder of their immortal lives, slowly having their own spirit defiled by the evil they slay, slowly turning them into what it is that they are fighting so hard against. They are gradually losing their fight against the ultimate evil, and one by one are becoming part of that evil. Only the Seraphs can save them, returning them to the light. The problem being that they have to find the Seraph with a mark that matches their own, be it a tattoo, scar or otherwise.

Well, I am gonna come right out and say that I LOVE Claire Ashgrove’s Immortal Hope, I want the next one in the series (Immortal Surrender) and I want it NOW. Even though it was in a very strange format on my kindle and was somewhat annoying to read in such a state, I could not put it down. It seems like ages since I have read a book that has grabbed me like this and I loved every minute of it (can’t say the same for the hubby, kids or housework).

Anne is great, really sassy, and great fun to read, but she had one annoying flaw, making me want to pound on her, which was the inability to completely honest with Merrick when it was so desperately important. I guess I can understand her reasons why, but I still wanted slap her upside the head a good few times. She put all the Knights through hell with her idiocy and I have to say that they were an awful lot more gracious than I think I would have been in their situation.

Merrick is what I’d imagine a man of those times to be. Noble, and proud, a hunk of manly man, but domineering and stubborn too. I loved all the Knights that we meet (well, almost, but there are a few we aren’t supposed to like) and the main characters have been fleshed out quite nicely already, so you have a good sense of who they are, ready for the following books in the series, when they will (presumably) also find their own Seraph.

VERDICT

There are loads of great characters in Immortal Hope and I am really excited to see what happens next. I am not a great history buff, but this book has really pricked my interest in the Templar Knights and I find myself wanting to look into their history, to better understand The Curse of the Templars series. The last series that did this for me was the Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon with all the Greek God and so on which I devoured with relish! So fingers crossed that The Curse of the Templars continues to be as awesome as this first instalment, and runs on for a good while too!! Bring on Immortal Surrender!

RATING: 

CLAIRE ASHGROVE ONLINE
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BOOKS IN SERIES ORDER

1. Immortal Hope
2. Immortal Surrender
3. Immortal Trust

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